


Keep Looking For Water

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Anal Sex, BDSM, Begging, Boot Worship, Daddy Play (Mentioned), Dean Winchester Has PTSD, Dean Winchester Talks About Feelings, Dom Castiel (Supernatural), Elaborate Rope Bondage (mentioned), Hand-feeding, Knifeplay (mentioned), Light Bondage, M/M, Oral Sex, Power Exchange, Praise Kink, Rough Sex, Spanking, Sub Dean Winchester, dubcon, exhibitionism (mentioned), humiliation (mentioned), pegging (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23298079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This is not the fic your prompt first made me envision, OP, and might not be the fic you want, but it's the fic I know how to write; there's less emphasis here on Dean's experimental period than on his relationship with Castiel. I would love to read a story that did real justice to the experimental period, and hope my fill doesn't dissuade anyone from writing it.
Relationships: Alastair/Dean Winchester (past), Castiel/Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester, Tessa/Dean Winchester (past), Victor Henriksen/Dean Winchester (past)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	Keep Looking For Water

**Author's Note:**

> Source: https://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/63992.html?thread=20455928#t20455928
> 
> This is not the fic your prompt first made me envision, OP, and might not be the fic you want, but it's the fic I know how to write; there's less emphasis here on Dean's experimental period than on his relationship with Castiel. I would love to read a story that did real justice to the experimental period, and hope my fill doesn't dissuade anyone from writing it.
> 
> Title: Keep Looking for Water
> 
> Pairings: Dean/Castiel, with minor Dean/Charlie (platonic/one-sided), Dean/Alastair, Dean/Victor, Dean/Tessa, Dean/unnamed minor male and female characters
> 
> Kinks: power exchange, spanking, praise, light bondage, hand-feeding.
> 
> Kinks appearing in small quantities or offscreen: exhibitionism, pegging, elaborate rope bondage, dubcon, daddy play, knife play, begging, humiliation, boot worship.
> 
> Other content notes: mundane AU setting. This story is not yet complete as of this writing, and these lists may not be comprehensive.

Dean was so focused on his smarting ass and the sweet hum of his endorphin rush that the guy two stools away along the bar didn't register at all until he spoke, and whatever he'd said, the noise of the club and the noise in Dean's head reduced it to an unintelligible baritone rasp. The Chief chose that moment to swing by with Dean's boilermaker and a Sharpie, and Dean tried to pull himself together, at least enough to talk, during the business of getting the black X on his hand that marked him as off-limits for the rest of the evening.

"Sorry, man," he said as the Chief moved away. "I missed that."

"I said, you took that well. Your mistress must be pleased to have a submissive so obedient and so well-formed."

Dean nearly fumbled his shot. The rough edges in this guy's voice snagged all the right nerves, and the praise curled hot through him like the whiskey he hadn't downed yet; he had a sudden and breath-stealingly vivid mental image of this stranger scraping his nails over Dean's raw ass.

"Oh, I," Dean said. "Uh."

Exhibitionism wasn't Dean's thing, but he'd learned to make it work for him. He couldn't expect much more than a firm hug from Charlie after she spanked him, but he couldn't go home straight away, either; alone in his apartment, he would just slip into a funk that wouldn't lift for days. So he'd stick around, accept the  _ hey great job _ s and the claps on the shoulder that came his way, with an out-of-bounds mark on one hand and a drink in the other to ward off anyone who might make him an offer that he wouldn't be able, in the midst of his giddy post-thrashing receptivity, to refuse. Both of his buzzes would subside, and he'd drive home alone, usually for a long, slow jerkoff session to the thought of Charlie strapping it on and giving it to him so hard his teeth would rattle.

Dean lapped up that attention, the flirting, the people who told him he'd been hot or that they'd like to have a go at him sometime -- but it never hit him like this, right in the gut. Maybe because normal people, and the regulars at Stripes were a more normal bunch than Dean would have imagined before he became one himself, didn't  _ talk _ like that; maybe because of the guy's level, penetrating stare; maybe because of that damned voice.

"It was a pleasure to watch you," the guy said and, like that was that, pushed away from the bar.

"Uh, thanks," Dean called after him, inadequately; the guy gave Dean a nod and strolled away, through the doors back to the playroom. Dean stared after him for a while, then down at the mark on his hand for a while longer. He hadn't touched his drink; he could wash the mark off right now, and--

No. "Go have a drink at the bar," Charlie had said, like she always did, as he shakily pulled his clothes back on. "Cool off, go home, get a good night's sleep." Nothing about throwing himself at the feet of random sweet-talking weirdos. Dean took his shot, and looked up and deliberately away from the playroom to find Pamela approaching him.

"Hey," he greeted her, "sorry, my brother's still vanilla."

Dean made a point of leaving no earlier than usual that night, but only caught a couple of glimpses of the guy with the voice through the swinging playroom doors: once standing and watching a flogging with his hands in the pockets of his suit pants, once sitting on one of the horrible zebra-print loveseats and talking to someone Dean couldn't see. He managed to keep his mind on nothing in particular for the entire drive home, didn't think of the guy once, but when he fell into bed it wasn't Charlie he pictured holding him down with wiry strength or speaking low in his ear; it wasn't generous, unattainable Charlie's pistoning hips he imagined rekindling the ache in his ass.

-

"Will your mistress be showing you off again tonight?" a familiar voice said, and Dean let out the breath he'd been holding for a week. So: mystery man didn't have to be out of bed early on Friday mornings as a matter of course, and Dean wasn't going to have to embarrass himself by putting out feelers, or possibly an APB, for a guy he'd had one thirty-second conversation with.

"Charlie isn't my -- uh--" Dean still tripped over the kinkster vocabulary every time. "It's not like that," he said instead. "I help her out when she wants a dude for a rope demo, and she pays me back in -- you know --" He made a whipcrack noise with his mouth. "-- but she's gay as hell. She's doing another rope demo with her girl in a couple of days, if you--"

He was talking too much, laying out the things he'd wished he'd said last time too fast. The guy saved him by saying, "Are you not here with someone?"

"Nope," Dean said quickly. The guy just nodded, grave, and perched on the far arm of the loveseat where Dean had been nursing a soda for the past half-hour. He could've been reproduced, tonight, from the rough sketch of him Dean had held in his head since last Thursday: same windblown hair, same unbuttoned collar and loosened tie. The lines under his eyes and his unkempt suit gave him a harassed quality Dean associated with civil servants. He accepted Dean's perusal stoically, but every time Dean's attention moved toward his face their gazes would slot together, and it was harder each time to look away.

"I, uh." Dean wet his lips and let himself be caught. "I didn't get your name last time. I'm Dean."

"Castiel," the guy said, which was odd enough that it might have been an alias, in  _ this _ place.

Six weeks ago Dean went to a regular bar, one of his old haunts, and picked up a woman. It had been great: fun girl, awesome sex, no strings, win-win. And it had reminded Dean, to his considerable benefit, that he actually did know how to flirt, that he could hook up like a champ. Flirting in Stripes was a different beast that Dean still didn't altogether know how to wrangle; his mere presence there signaled things about Dean that he had concealed even from himself until quite recently, and simply determining whether a given conversation  _ was _ a meaningful flirtation required unearthing still more confused, half-articulable secrets. Approaching dominants made him feel shaky-kneed and servile, and he just wanted one of them, the right one, the one who would hurt him just as much as he needed and use him just as tenderly as he craved, to point at him and say  _ You; you're mine; come with me _ .

But that was a fantasy, and this was a normal Thursday night at Stripes, where Dean was responsible for his own pleasure and safety and fulfillment, and magical superdoms didn't swoop out of nowhere to grant all of his wishes.

"I think you should come home with me," Castiel said.

Or so went the theory. Dean choked on his soda. "Why, you got something you want to do to me you don't want anybody seeing?" he asked hoarsely, feeling his shirt front to make sure he hadn't gotten Coke on himself.

Castiel folded his arms and looked away from Dean for the first time since he'd appeared, to squint out over the playroom floor. Halfway across the room, a woman Dean didn't know was on a St. Andre's cross, getting acquainted, pretty loudly, with a regular's fancy custom flogger; it was early yet, and the room was otherwise mostly people socializing. "Insofar as I want to spank you in a less public setting, yes, but I want privacy, not secrecy."

Dean closed his eyes and squeezed his glass hard. That voice was unfair. "So you're okay with the Chief calling me in the morning to make sure everything's hunky-dory?"

"Yes," Castiel said. When Dean opened his eyes again, Castiel was looking at him already, steady and penetrating. "And anything else you stipulate. If this is what you want." Dean must have licked his lips again, because Castiel's gaze dropped to them and then to his body, the first time in either of their conversations that he'd looked somewhere other than away from Dean altogether or directly into his eyes. Sudden heat lit Dean's skin, and the more straightforward thrill of being checked out by an attractive guy when he hadn't been laid for weeks joined the edgy fight-or-flight anticipation of an offered beating.

"Yeah," Dean said. The loveseat was so deep and squashy he had to push himself out of it with his free hand. "Yeah, let's get out of here. I'm gonna check in with the Chief." Castiel nodded, and Dean headed for the doors to the bar. He put a little swagger in it, aware of Castiel's eyes on him; he wanted  _ well-formed _ , Dean would show him well-formed.

Castiel was in the coatroom when Dean got there, shrugging into a rumpled khaki trenchcoat. It was just the two of them; Dean grabbed his jacket and thought hard about kissing Castiel in this momentary privacy, about how the pensive shape of his mouth would feel. "I'll follow you in my car?" he said, watching Castiel's body language for any hint of invitation that might show through his reserve.

"I didn't drive here," Castiel said, and swept out of the room. Dammit. Some making out and maybe a few hard slaps to the ass in the coatroom would've both soothed Dean's nerves and satisfied a fantasy Dean had been nursing all week about being kissed by Castiel, rough and possessive, about guiding Castiel's hands to his ass and letting him do as he pleased. In the fantasy, this was conveniently and without negotiation also exactly what  _ Dean _ pleased.

"Guess you're riding shotgun," Dean said, and followed him into the vestibule to find Castiel holding the front door for him. All right, so Castiel just wasn't that guy. Castiel was remote and weirdly formal and polite. Given Dean's prior experience with "that guy", the zero-to-sixty guy who insinuated himself past Dean's defenses without asking much more than his name and knocked him as quickly as possible down into that state of feverish susceptibility and willingness Dean hadn't even had a term for at the time, going home willy-nilly with a good-looking oddball who cared about protocol was one of Dean's better decisions. Dean led him around the corner to where he was parked, ignored Castiel's total lack of reaction to the hotness of Dean's car, and started the engine while Castiel strapped himself into the passenger seat.

Castiel gave him curt directions to an address in a middle-of-the-road residential district and was silent for a while, watching downtown slide past the windows. "I need to know your limits," he said eventually.

Dean bit back the  _ whatever you want, dude _ that crowded up his throat. This part always made him feel like an asshole, like a bad sub, like no one could want to take and keep a man who offered himself to them with a list of conditions. It hadn't been until after his disastrous, whirlwind introduction to BDSM that he learned he was supposed to have a say at all; he had been so green then he'd thought the shame and horror and being told  _ you'll learn to like it _ were just intrinsic parts of the process. He still vividly recalled twisting in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to get a clear look at the words DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL scored into his back and thinking of the way Alastair had finally gotten hard only once he had a knife in his hand, and the epiphany he'd had: something needed to change before Dean wound up as a cautionary tale.

Alastair hadn't shown his face at Stripes since the ugly scene he and Dean had made in the bar a week after that, but the rumor mill said he was seeing Meg now. Dean wished them the best, he supposed.

"Uh," he said, fast and uncomfortable, "you can hit me ... pretty hard, but not with anything narrower than three inches. Ass and thighs only. Bondage is okay, but not if you're going to spend an hour on it. Don't call me -- slut, or whatever."

"I wouldn't want to," Castiel said, and Dean nodded and let himself breathe. "And your desires?"

Dean glanced at him disbelievingly, but he seemed completely serious; this was how Castiel actually talked. "I, uh, I -- I don't know, man, what's on the itinerary?"

Castiel exhaled through his nose. "I want to lay you out on my bed and spank you with my open hand until you weep," he said, perfectly matter-of-factly, in a voice that made Dean's bones feel molten. "If I have your consent."

"Jesus Christ," Dean muttered, squeezing the steering wheel. " _ Yes _ . Are you -- do you want to fuck me?" he blurted, and risked another sidewise look at Castiel, just long enough to see his gaze travel down Dean's body again.

"Would you enjoy that?"

"I think that's up to you, dude," Dean said, with a breathless half-laugh. Prior to Alastair, Dean's experience with men had been limited to a couple of blowjobs offered to him in bars, and he hadn't discovered that he actually  _ liked _ being fucked, that he would beg for it abjectly and mean every word, until months later, with Victor. It was still a little new for him, a little weird, and he'd been thinking about Castiel fucking him for a week solid now, but actually talking about it gave him a whole new set of stomach butterflies to add to the pre-spanking jitters.

Castiel lapsed into a suggestive silence and only spoke again once Dean exited the expressway, to direct Dean through his quiet, tree-shaded neighborhood. His house was a little two-storey affair; inside, the furniture was simple and elegant under a layer of clutter. It reminded Dean of Castiel himself, in his good suit and crooked tie.

"Can I offer you anything?" said Castiel, and dropped his trenchcoat onto the couch.

"I'm good." Dean fought the urge to jiggle his leg.

Castiel nodded and preceded him up the stairs. "Is there a safeword you prefer?"

"Red-yellow-green work for you?"

"That's fine." The stairs let directly into what Dean guessed was supposed to be a sitting room, but served instead as an office; one wall was dominated by a whiteboard covered in the kind of math with no numbers in it, the others by bookshelves, and drifts of papers surrounded the computer. Dean considered asking, but Castiel was already headed down the hall toward the open bedroom door, and he was happy to let it wait.

Castiel flicked the lights on and closed the bedroom door behind them, and then just looked at Dean for a long moment, unhurriedly and unambiguously taking him in. Dean felt pinned by his slow regard; he looked away, opened and closed his hands at his sides, but was helpless to move until Castiel said, "Undress for me."

Dean nodded and slipped his jacket off. He didn't know how much of a show he was being asked for -- or ordered to give -- but with the  _ for me _ echoing in his head, he made a point of pulling his shirt over his head slowly, of turning his back before easing his jeans down past his ass. He folded his clothes loosely with unsteady hands, squared his boots up next to them on the floor; from behind him came rustlings that he took for the sound of Castiel taking off his suit coat and kicking off his shoes. Dean began to straighten, then jerked fully upright with a gasp when Castiel's hand closed on the back of his neck.

"You're agitated," Castiel said.

"Yeah, I -- adrenaline -- I'm good, I'm always like this." Dean's cock twitched toward hardness. He'd dwelled so much on the rough caresses of Castiel's voice that he hadn't thought much about the fact that Castiel had not yet actually touched him; now that he'd done so, Dean felt starved for it. When Castiel used his grip on Dean's neck to push him toward the bed, he moaned involuntarily, high and startled.

He pressed forward until Dean had walked on his knees to the center of the bed, and then down. Dean stretched his arms out under the pillows but kept his knees under him, so that his chest nearly touched the sheets and his ass remained in the air. "Is this good?" he said, though the way Castiel's hand immediately traveled up from Dean's neck and into his hair told him it must be.

"It's very good," Castiel said anyway, settling on his haunches next to Dean, with his knees slightly under the arch of Dean's body. He rested his other hand between Dean's shoulders, just lightly for a moment, then ran it slow and firm down Dean's back. Dean pressed up into the touch, shivering, ready, but Castiel swept his hand back up instead of continuing south. This time it detoured away from Dean's spine, first to trace the scar where Dean had nearly taken a knife to the kidney a few years ago, then to linger on the patch of pebbly, insensate skin where chasing a perp on foot across a half-dozen rooftops had left Dean with, in addition to a dozen bruises and a sprained ankle, four inches of road rash. Dean froze. He'd been in his boxers the other day, when Castiel had watched him with Charlie, but these things weren't always visible from a distance, in Stripes' moody lighting.

Castiel gripped Dean suddenly by the hair, not painfully, but hard enough to command his full attention. "No," he said, smoothing his hand down Dean's back again. "Your body is a marvel. I'm honored to touch you."

Dean was at a loss, but he figured the spanking was about to commence and no comment from him was necessary. The hand moving toward his ass skipped it altogether, though; it touched the back of his thigh instead, so unexpectedly that Dean twitched as though Castiel had struck him after all. Castiel stroked him there with light fingers, along the insides of his thighs and up the backs, close enough to his ass and balls to make his stomach clench with anticipation. At the same time he scraped the nails of his other hand gently through Dean's hair. That was all, for a while; it was such a tease, and it left Dean achingly hard, but to his surprise the slow rhythm and undemanding pleasure of it also soothed some of the tension in his shoulders and back.

"I'm about to begin," Castiel said eventually.

Even with that warning, the first strike of his hand was a surprise, like between the last time and this one Dean had somehow forgotten how pain felt. He jerked against the bed, gripping handfuls of Castiel's dark sheets, and jerked again, gasping, when Castiel's hand descended on him a second time. Castiel worked Dean over with metronomic regularity and unanticipated force, until every inch of Dean's ass was hot and stinging; when it stopped he panted into the sheets, floored by the pain, waiting with combined dread and desire to see if there would be more.

There was. Castiel just stroked Dean's ass and played with his hair for a little while, but the strokes became little flicks of his fingers along the tops of Dean's thighs, then light swats that almost playfully woke the subsiding pain from the first round, and eventually uncompromising blows from the shoulder that shook through Dean's whole body, faster and faster until he was writhing in place and Castiel had to hold him still by the hair. It broke off abruptly, and Dean gulped in a few deep breaths and tried to draw himself neatly back up into his starting position.

"Good," Castiel said, absently, as though to himself, but that one word made Dean feel hot and loose and happy; his ragged breathing hitched, and he bowed his body eagerly. Castiel was still for a moment, and then his hand was on Dean's ass again, kneading first one cheek and then the other, firmly enough to make Dean squirm against his grip. "You're doing beautifully," he said, in a slow, thoughtful voice Dean felt all down his spine. "I couldn't have chosen better than you." Dean opened his mouth to say he knew not what, to thank him maybe, but another hard slap of Castiel's hand drove the words from his head.

He was never aware of going under. He could have pointed out the moment when the pain stopped being shocking and enormous and turned sweet, but not the moment when it ceased to be pain at all and became simply sensation, intensity. It was all of a piece with the desperate throbbing of his cock and the irregular sounds of flesh striking flesh: Castiel's hands and what they were doing to him, Castiel's will worked upon him. Dean gave himself up to it, trembled and flexed with it, wept his acceptance of it into the bedclothes.

"I know you're enjoying this," Castiel said to him at some point, leaning down close and massaging Dean's scalp with both hands. Dean didn't know how long it had been; Dean wanted it to go on forever. "I'm glad. You should." He kneaded Dean's neck and shoulders, then stroked his hands down Dean's back until they reached his ass. One of them stayed there, feeling hot as a brand on the abused skin where it rested, but the other slid along the curve of Dean's buttock and then between his thighs, to delicately touch his balls. Dean sobbed out some incoherent plea and ground his hips helplessly against nothing; his stomach was already wet with precome flung up onto it from his dripping cock in the course of his thrashings.

"You earned this pleasure," Castiel went on, and the hand on Dean's ass rose and fell, twice, three times, more. Dean couldn't tell a hard blow from a soft one anymore; every impact went through him in a shockwave of need and bliss. "For your bravery, for being dutiful and pliant, you deserve it." Castiel pressed his palm against Dean's balls, firm now, then took it away to touch the wet head of his cock in that same light, exploratory way he seemed to touch every new part of Dean. With no grip on his hair to hold him still, Dean had to fight hard not to thrust wildly against Castiel's hand, to just let Castiel touch him. "I'm proud of you," Castiel said, and closed his hand around Dean's cock.

Dean's orgasm folded him in half like a punch to the gut. Castiel spanked him straight through it, and Dean couldn't tell which rhythm was his own body and which was Castiel's hand, couldn't have said whether they were different at all. He collapsed when it was over, a panting, strengthless mess, and Castiel adjusted his legs for him so that he was laid out flat, but Dean was helpless to assist. Castiel had his hand on the center of Dean's back now, holding him down as though he could possibly, possibly move, and he was upright on his knees, leaning over Dean; Dean lay with his face in a pillow, so stunned with pleasure that he didn't realize what the sounds Castiel was making meant until Castiel groaned one last time and came in streaks across the small of his back and the top of his ass.

Castiel flopped down hard next to Dean on the bed. At some point he had rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and removed his tie, as Dean discovered when, with great effort, he turned his head to look at Castiel. He'd slung a forearm across his eyes, and his other hand had fallen so that its knuckles just barely rested against Dean's side, maybe accidentally; he stayed that way for a long time, catching his breath, while a need built and built in Dean's skin like a scream. If Castiel didn't touch him properly again soon he was just going to rub himself along Castiel's body like a cat and that was that -- they couldn't possibly be done, Dean was still so sensitive all over, so attuned, and Castiel hadn't even fucked him yet -- but his arm was over his eyes, and panic eeled through Dean at the thought that he might not be able to bear to look at Dean now, let alone anything else--

With such suddenness that Dean flinched, Castiel rolled toward him and smoothed his fingers over Dean's hair. He was looking at Dean now, all right, with a wondering softness Dean had not imagined Castiel's severe face could display. The fast, scared thudding of Dean's heart subsided, and he felt ridiculous, and grateful, and then ridiculous for his gratitude. He tried to reach for Castiel, to touch him, but he was trembling and so weak he didn't get past dragging his hand down from under the pillow before he knew it was beyond him to actually lift it from the bed. Dean settled for turning his head a little instead, and kissing Castiel's palm, then the inside of his wrist.

Something changed subtly in Castiel's face, around the eyes and mouth: Dean wouldn't have identified it as a smile on anyone else. Surely he would kiss Dean now, finally -- he was so close, and he seemed so luminously pleased -- but all he did was touch Dean's teary face gently, then sit up and lean away to rummage through the drawer of his nightstand. Dean closed his eyes against the prickle of new tears and tried to breathe through his rollercoastering emotions, then kept them closed when Castiel cupped his chin and began to wipe his face with what felt like a tissue. "Blow," Castiel said, holding the tissue over his nose, and Dean laughed a little, wetly, and did as he was told.

He was thorough, and apparently not shy about Dean's snot. When he was done he rose onto his knees and wiped up the come on Dean's back as well, then sat on the bed, level with Dean's shoulders. Castiel scratched his fingers through Dean's hair, then flattened the sweaty spikes of it back into place again with slow, lulling sweeps of his hand. Dean groaned and just took it, and when Castiel's stroking ventured down along his neck and back, he flexed up into the touch with a long sigh of satisfaction.

"How do you feel?" asked Castiel, when a brush of his fingers across Dean's ass elicited a gasp. It hadn't come all the way back around to straightforwardly  _ hurting _ yet, but his whole body throbbed with it; his cock gave a feeble jerk of interest.

"Awesome," he said, and turned his head to be certain Castiel could see the corner of his grin. "Really awesome."

"That's good," Castiel said, stroking Dean's ass again, and the pleased note in his voice melted away whatever strength Dean would have used to push himself up into Castiel's ministrations. "You were outstanding."

Castiel's hand strayed northward again before long, to move in soft passes up and down Dean's back, from the crown of his head to the base of his spine. Everything about Dean slowed toward Castiel's lazy rhythm: his heart, his breath, his thoughts, the wild seesaw of his feelings. He didn't realize he was falling asleep until Castiel shifted his weight and the movement startled him awake; he scrabbled dazedly at the sheets, and blurted, "I can head out," without any clear knowledge of where he was or who he was with.

"You may sleep here," Castiel said, after a pause long enough for Dean to get his bearings in. "At the foot of the bed."

"Oh." Dean's stomach flipped. "Okay, yeah, I -- I -- thanks."

"I'll be back shortly." Castiel climbed off the bed and vanished into the bathroom, from which began to issue the sounds of running water. Dean considered asking to borrow a toothbrush so he could follow suit, but he was groggy and his limbs felt leaden, and he just wanted to go back to that place of total contentment and repletion and safety that Castiel's hands had taken him to. He crawled down to the foot of the bed and stretched, then curled up enough to fit the length of his body widthwise on the bed.

Dean was half-asleep again when Castiel reemerged. He was aware of the sounds of Castiel changing out of the remains of his suit and into pajamas of some kind, but as much as he wanted to see Castiel naked, he couldn't bring himself to move again until Castiel slipped under the covers and nudged Dean with his feet, apparently trying to find a place to put them. Dean reoriented himself with some effort, and pillowed his head tentatively on Castiel's calves.

"That's good," Castiel sighed, and that was the last thing Dean knew.

-

It was still dark when Dean woke; he couldn't have said whether it was his own shivering that woke him, or his bladder. He stumbled into the bathroom, relieved himself, and had stumbled back out and halfway to the bed before he realized that Castiel's eyes were open, and that he wasn't certain what the protocol was for getting out of bed for a midnight piss when you're sleeping at the feet of the guy who recently beat your ass into next week.

Castiel was reaching for him, though, and with his other hand he had thrown back the covers: good signs. Dean came to him and, unable to figure out what part of him Castiel was reaching for, knelt on the edge of the bed so he could grab wherever he liked. He went for the head, and Dean, freezing or not, experienced a momentary thrill when Castiel guided him in and down and it looked like they were about to embark upon a blowjob -- but all Castiel did was press Dean's head gently to his stomach. After an uncertain moment, Dean maneuvered his body parallel to Castiel's legs and drew his own legs up to keep them from hanging off the end of the bed. Castiel pulled the already-warm bedclothes over both of them, tucking them around his waist and Dean's shoulders, then ran both of his hands through Dean's hair and began stroking it again, slowly.

As he warmed up, Dean relaxed from his huddle under the sheets and slung a tentative arm around Castiel's hips. Castiel sighed and began to snore, very softly, and Dean followed him back down into sleep not long after.

The next thing to wake Dean was his phone, shrilling from the other side of the room. He peeled his face off the wet patch he'd drooled onto Castiel's thigh and flailed himself free of the covers, then groped his way through two garments before getting his bearings enough to locate the damned phone in the pocket of his jacket.

He sat down incautiously on the floor as he answered it, and the first words out of his mouth were, "Ow fuck Jesus."

"I don't know if that means you're in one piece or not," the Chief said from the other end of the line.

Dean groaned and rubbed his face. "I'm fine. Everything is awesome. I'll see you in a few days, probably."

"Drink a sports drink, like Vitamin Water. You've probably lost a lot of electrolytes."

"Oh my god," Dean said. "It's too damn early for this. I'm hanging up, Chief."

He snapped the phone closed and dropped it on his jacket. When he looked up, Castiel was sitting up against the headboard, and if Dean had had to guess he would have said Castiel looked amused.

"It's almost nine AM," Castiel said, and Dean looked bewilderedly at his watch as he got back to his feet. Oh. A lot more than his ass hurt -- getting spanked always seemed to use every muscle group -- and despite the not-evidently-that-early hour, he wanted nothing so much as to crawl back under the covers and put his head in Castiel's lap. "I have a teleconference at ten," Castiel added, and Dean tried not to sigh too obviously.

"Okay, I can get out of your hair," he said, and stooped to look for his underwear.

"Wait," Castiel said. Dean waited. "You should stay for breakfast."

"I could go for that," Dean said, falteringly dropping his boxers back on the once-neat pile of his clothes.

"You'll find cereal in the pantry and a large bowl in the cabinet above the sink. Fill it and bring it up here. Cutlery is in the drawer next to the refrigerator."

"Um, okay," Dean said. He hesitated, in case an explanation was forthcoming, but Castiel just climbed out of bed and walked into the bathroom. Dean knew when he had been dismissed. On the way down the stairs he considered stretching his instructions to at least make a real breakfast, but the code three bachelor pantry situation in the kitchen scuttled that idea: the options were cereal, or cereal with wilted lettuce and teriyaki sauce. Dean shrugged to himself and did as he was told.

Castiel was sitting on the bed again when Dean returned to the bedroom, wearing jeans now and buttoning a grey dress shirt, with his hair still a wild mess. "Good," he said, looking up. "You did well. Come here and kneel."

Dean almost balked at this. He was a grown man, a fucking decorated veteran, and last night notwithstanding, he didn't need a pat on the head for successfully putting Cheerios and milk into the same bowl. Except -- Castiel said it so gravely, looked at him so solemnly, like just by obeying him Dean had accomplished some profoundly worthy thing -- damn it. Dean crossed the room and sank gingerly to his knees between Castiel's bare feet, confused and inexplicably happy.

"How do you feel?" Castiel asked, accepting the bowl from Dean. He took both of the spoons Dean had brought as well, and Dean had so little idea where the cereal business was going that he just let it be and focused instead on searching for a comfortable way to rest his bruised ass on his heels. One of the spoons Castiel set aside on the nightstand; the other he used to push the cereal down below the level of the milk, working his way methodically around the bowl in concentric circles. Dean had the amused intuition that Castiel had primed his cereal this way since he was a kid.

"Sore as hell," he said, "but good sore. A hot shower'll clear up a lot of it, and the rest I want to keep a while anyway."

Castiel glanced up at that, with a heat in his eyes that Dean was not prepared for in this baffling context. Very aware all at once of how naked he was, of how clothed Castiel was, Dean dropped his gaze deferentially and wet his lips. "Cross your wrists behind your back," Castiel said, and Dean did, wobbling on his knees a little when his center of gravity changed.

Aside from the matter of the cereal, this scenario was familiar, and Dean found himself bowing his head and sloping his shoulders into the pose he'd been taught by Victor. He had spent a lot of time on the floor when they were together, done a lot of crawling, worn a lot of butt plugs. Victor was all about the ritual subservience, about putting Dean in his place and disciplining him if he got out of line. Dean had found it by turns scorchingly hot and impossible to take seriously, but Victor's punishments, when the cracks showed in Dean's attitude, had tended to involve rough sex, and Dean provoking him had been half the fun anyway.

They also tended to involve Victor telling him what a worthless filthy whore-boy he was, which Dean tried to laugh off. He'd heard worse, he knew it was all part of the game, and he could deal with a little shame, a little not meeting his own eyes in the mirror for days at a go. Victor actually wanted to know what Dean liked, what he would and would do, how far was too far to push him; Victor was furious on Dean's behalf when Dean explained why this conversation was entirely outside his expectations. Victor was a good man, with one flaw, and Dean didn't want to lose him. Victor was a good man who eventually took Dean down to such a nadir of submission and misery that Dean descended even further, into one of the very few honest-to-God flashbacks he'd ever had to Afghanistan.

He'd wrapped Dean in a blanket and talked him through it, for hours�; it took at least an hour for Dean to get his shit together enough to notice that Victor's hand was for some reason bandaged, and Victor had refused to explain what Dean had done, but Victor had a scar on his hand these days that was obviously from human teeth. Eventually Victor had written down a number and an address, and told Dean gently that if they were going to continue, Dean needed to get a whole lot of therapy.

Dean carried the number around in his wallet for weeks, far longer than the window of opportunity with Victor, before he called it. Victor had been nothing but wistfully polite since that day, but Dean had only recently learned to stop avoiding him.

"Dean," Castiel said, and Dean looked up to find a spoonful of Cheerios hovering not far from his face.

Okay then. Dean ate the damn cereal, and Castiel, as inscrutable as ever, followed suit. They continued in this fashion for a while, and Dean found that as they progressed through the bowl he cared less about the weirdness of it and more about just having a quiet breakfast with Castiel. He shifted in place a little, to rest his shoulder against Castiel's leg, and Castiel responded by pressing his toes against Dean's calf; he leaned into Castiel more, careful not to uncross his wrists, and Castiel put the bowl down on the bed next to himself to free up a hand, which he rested on Dean's head.

"So, uh," Dean said, between bites. "You're a mathematician?"

"I'm an editor for the New Review of High Energy Physics," Castiel said, stroking the back of Dean's neck with his thumb.

"Jesus. I haven't heard that one before. I'm a cop."

The spoon paused halfway down from Castiel's mouth. "I heard that law enforcement frequented Stripes," he said after he'd swallowed.

"Yeah, it's me and another guy. A Fed." Dean peered up at Castiel, but his face gave away no more now than it had when they first met. "Is this a problem? I swear this isn't some screwy entrapment thing."

Castiel surprised Dean by snorting, almost silently. He chased the last few Cheerios around the bowl and fed them to Dean. "It's not a problem, but you surprised me. I thought you were a soldier."

"I was one of those too," Dean said without thinking, and, as always, wished instantly to be talking about any other subject. Maybe his face gave him away, or maybe he was just a lucky bastard, because Castiel chose that moment to cup his hand around the back of Dean's head and tip the rim of the bowl up to Dean's lips. Dean drank obediently, though after a few swallows the reality of what he was doing hit him and he had to fight a laugh that would just have sent milk into his sinuses.

When it was half-gone, Castiel took it away and finished it himself, while Dean resituated his body against Castiel's leg and rested his head on Castiel's thigh. From this angle Dean could see a narrow table in the corner behind the door, almost a pillar, with an icon of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe on it, and a wooden rosary draped over that. He wasn't sure whether he was gladder that he hadn't noticed it last night and been aware of its painted gaze on him throughout the proceedings, or that Castiel wasn't the type to make a show of covering the eyes of the Virgin Mother before getting his freak on.

"Why the police force?" asked Castiel, as he placed the empty bowl on the nightstand. "You didn't want a ... reprieve?"

"I don't know," Dean said, and sighed involuntarily when Castiel's fingers slipped over his by now utterly disarranged hair. "I mean, I know now, but at the time I just didn't know what the hell else to do, and figured my skills would apply.  _ Now _ it's because ... okay, so, the precinct isn't big enough to have a domestic violence unit, but my partner and me get a lot of domestic cases. You see some terrible shit, I can't begin to tell you -- but sometimes you get to save someone, you know?"

Castiel ran his hand down Dean's neck, then reversed direction, fingers curled now so that his nails scratched along Dean's scalp. "You're a good man, Dean," he said, with a note of amazement in his voice that Dean was affronted by for a moment, until he recalled that this was just about the first thing Castiel had really learned about him. He knew Dean was a sub and decent at holding still for a spanking, yeah, but Castiel could've taken home a dozen other guys last night of whom both those things were also true, and neither of them was something Dean carried around with him on the street. When he left here, though, Dean would still be the guy they hauled out of bed to question underage witnesses who wouldn't talk to anyone else, and that guy, maybe, was someone Castiel would turn out to like and respect.

Castiel's unoccupied hand was draped over his thigh, opposite Dean's head, and with his heart suddenly racing, Dean leaned over and kissed Castiel's knuckles. They were both still for a moment, until Castiel flipped his hand over and cradled Dean's jaw with it. When Dean looked up, Castiel had that expression on his face again, the one from last night that made Dean feel both cherished and totally unprepared, like Castiel couldn't imagine anything better than Dean.

He didn't kiss Dean this time either, just looked at him and looked at him, as though cataloguing the details for later; and maybe he was, because the next thing Castiel said was, "I need you to go. I'll be too distracted to work with you here."

Dean's stomach dropped, but he mustered a languorous grin anyway. "Oh yeah?" Castiel just looked away, with his lips tucked between his teeth like he was fighting a smile. "You think I could call you sometime?" asked Dean, testing the feeling of not fearing the answer might be no.

Castiel nodded. "Bring me your phone. You may uncross your wrists," he added, when Dean swayed effortfully to his feet with his hands still behind his back. He reached out to touch Dean's belly, just lightly; it clenched under his fingertips, of its own accord. "You've behaved yourself impeccably all morning. I'm very pleased with you."

Dean ducked his head, feeling hot under his skin. "Yeah, if you keep talking like that I can't make any promises about you getting to your meeting on time," he muttered, and kept his wrists as they were until Castiel's hand fell away. He took a deep breath, offered Castiel another little grin, then crossed the room to his clothes and tossed his phone onto the bed where Castiel could reach it. Castiel seemed to have no problem navigating the menus, probably because he was some alpha nerd physicist -- God -- and Dean's phone was about five years out of date and by Sam's reckoning might as well have been made out of flint and sinew anyway, but his attention did keep drifting up toward Dean as he dressed; when Dean identified the nature of Castiel's distraction he made a flagrant show of himself, over the protestations of his misused muscles. Castiel looked amused again, and directed his attention firmly back to the phone.

He handed the phone back when Dean sat on the bed next to him to put his boots on -- he'd entered his name as  _ Jaime Castiel _ , which Dean wouldn't have guessed -- and rested his hand casually on Dean's neck under the collar of his jacket while Dean sorted out his laces. The little touches continued as Castiel ushered him down the stairs and toward the door; they talked banally about their respective schedules and what days worked for both of them, and all the while Castiel was touching Dean's elbow, the small of his back, the back of his hand. It was all Dean could do not to drag Castiel back up the stairs and show him how much more fun he'd have with a willing Dean Winchester back in his bed than he would with a teleconference, though all the same Dean couldn't find it in himself to regret having eaten their odd little breakfast together instead of squeezing in a morning quickie.

At the door Castiel actually touched Dean's mouth with his thumb, then ran his hand down Dean's throat and let it rest on his chest. He was so close, and he was looking up into Dean's face with his lips parted and God, what Dean would bet he could do with those lips, and Dean again thought  _ now, surely now _ \-- only to have Castiel say, "Goodbye," in his gruff, serious voice, and gently close the door on him.

Dean rested his forehead against the door and laughed at himself a little. Okay. He had a phone number, he had an in; he would sort this out somehow. For now he stretched, long and thorough, feeling the ache in his thighs and shoulders and back from tensing against Castiel's blows and the good raw-edged pain of his ass. Driving home would be fun.

The Impala waited for him on Castiel's driveway, littered with leaves from the willow in Castiel's yard. Dean rolled down the window and sang along with the radio all the way home.

"If I have to see you grin that stupid grin for no reason one more time, I'm going to stab you," Jo said eventually, from across their desk at work. "What is it? Did you win the lottery? Get laid so hard she knocked all the other expressions out of you? Just find out you're pregnant? What?"

"What do you think?" said Dean, leaning back in his chair, and let himself look exactly as pleased with everything in the universe as he felt.

"You're disgusting," Jo said. "Bring me lunch."

Dean winked as he grabbed his coat and, fifteen minutes later, whistled as he delivered her sandwich. He made a point of chewing his own food with his mouth open until she kicked him under the desk. This obnoxious older brother/bratty kid sister routine was always good for a grin -- and paving over their initial sexual tension with it was what had made their working relationship possible in the first place -- but his mood today went deeper than that. All the way down to whatever place in Dean Castiel had split open with his hands last night, and the words he'd left there before folding it gently closed again.

Jo finally delivered a vicious and repeated stabbing with a plastic spoon during their last round of coffee. Dean floated right through it, through a grueling interrogation the next day, through his weekly dinner-and-football with a simultaneously suspicious and amused Sam, not really thinking about what Castiel had said and done to him but never unaware of it. There was the pain, yeah, but when that faded it left Dean feeling deliciously  _ okay _ , steady, prepared for the day, even when that interrogation spiraled into more arrests. Hot, which was weird, because it wasn't like Dean ever forgot his own face, but he was sharply aware of being a looker and the effect he had on other people. He was starting to regret having no time to hit a bar and pick someone up just so he wouldn't waste it when he realized that, the way this went down in his imagination, the guy fucking him in the back of his car was someone whose number he already had. He called Castiel on Monday evening, with whatever sweet peace Castiel had spoken into him just beginning to fade, and Castiel showed up at his apartment door on Thursday with a bottle of wine.

So of course it had been a shitty day, and Dean got home barely in time to scrub himself down and put the potatoes in the steamer before Castiel showed up. Castiel looked politely the other way while Dean tried to hide the empty mugs and random pair of sweatpants in the living room, and seemed happy enough to sit at the kitchen table and talk while Dean cooked. He didn't kiss Dean hello, made no attempt to touch him whatsoever, and Dean fretted about this until he glanced over his shoulder in mid-sentence and found Castiel frozen with his glass of wine halfway to his mouth, obviously looking at Dean's ass. His gaze flicked up to Dean's face after a moment, and Dean turned back to the stove with a grin. Right: this was how Castiel worked. It had turned out pretty damn well for Dean last time; he should probably chill out.

They swapped carefully edited life stories. Dean talked about Sam a lot, about losing and regaining him, about how much happier seminary seemed to make him than his brief stint in law school had, and steered around the subjects of Dad and of precisely how special his overseas ops had been. Castiel, for his part, seemed to have sprung fully-formed into the world at the age of sixteen, and emigrated to the States from  _ somewhere _ for college on a please-don't-kill-us-with-your-giant-brain scholarship. Dean caught a reference to "one of my sisters", but he didn't press, and neither did Castiel.

Dean finally loaded up his biggest plate -- he had a suspicion it had originally belonged to some friend of his who would insist it was a serving platter and not for eating off of -- with two steaks and with mounds of sautéed greens and tiny novelty potatoes, and set it on the table at Castiel's elbow. He kept his eyes on Castiel's face as he sank to his knees, long enough to see all of the angles of it soften with pleasure and surprise, and then dropped his gaze and crossed his wrists at the small of his back. All of the knots in his chest seemed to have risen to his throat, not quite released yet but ready, waiting.

He felt Castiel's nails first, then the flats of his fingers and finally his palm as he ran his whole hand slowly back along the curve of Dean's skull. His knees were already complaining about being subjected to a linoleum floor, his back still hadn't forgiven him for those three hours of sleep he'd grabbed on the breakroom couch at dark o'clock, he was exhausted, ragged, used up -- and for a moment, with Castiel stroking his head and saying "I appreciate your initiative, Dean," it didn't matter. Dean rested his forehead against Castiel's knee, and the knots unraveled.

"Keep your hands where they are," Castiel went on, in a more businesslike voice. Dean nodded and sat back on his haunches, searching for a position he wouldn't regret too much when he stood up. When Castiel touched his face, Dean turned into the contact instinctively, like a blind creature seeking warmth. Castiel gave a soft, rueful exhalation of a laugh. "I thought about you all week."

"Me too," Dean said hoarsely, and Castiel cupped his cheek for a moment, then picked up the silverware.

Dean had wondered how someone like Castiel would be with real food, but he went at his steak with the ecstatic eye-rolling and sex noises of a proper carnivore and got only slightly finicky about stacking up the minuscule potatoes on the tines of his fork. He adjusted his legs so that Dean could lean more comfortably against his shin, and they ate in that comfortable semi-silence that descends upon a dinner table when the food is good and the diners mean business.

It was funny how fast this had become normal. The surreality intruded once or twice, like when Castiel was first negotiating his way through giving Dean a sip of wine without spilling it on him, and Dean had to bite back an incredulous laugh at himself; but mostly he was just happy to be eating dinner with Castiel, happy to sit at Castiel's feet with his skin tight with the knowledge of what would come after the meal, happy to be touched gently by someone who liked his cooking. When the plate was empty Castiel pushed it away and sat back with the wineglass in one hand and his other hand in Dean's hair, and Dean leaned on him and let himself feel the undertow of too many hours at work and a stomach full of hot food.

The next thing he was really aware of was Castiel pushing him down on his bed. Excitement ran through him like slow lightning, and he reached for Castiel, still disoriented but willing. Castiel moved away before his fingers could connect, and Dean, looking with scratchy eyes at his own extended hand, realized his mistake; he shoved both hands under his back, as though if he were quick Castiel might not notice.

"I said you could uncross them," Castiel said from halfway down toward the foot of the bed, sounding puzzled.

Dean relaxed. "Oh." He let his eyes close again; it was easier, and stung less, than fighting to keep them open.

"I don't think you were fully awake for that," Castiel said, unlacing one of Dean's boots. His voice was always a growl of one sort or another, but he sounded particularly disapproving at the moment. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Last night," Dean said, a little defensively, and, because they seemed to be taking his clothes off, started working on his belt.

"For how  _ long _ ?" If Castiel hadn't been irritated before, he was now. Dean's hands faltered, half from uncertainty, half because he seemed unable to figure out the mechanism of his buckle at the moment.

"A few hours?" ventured Dean, as Castiel pulled off his other boot and tossed it on the floor. Castiel grumbled something under his breath. Dean didn't know enough about what kind of dom Castiel was to tell whether this was a good thing.

He made much shorter work of Dean's belt than Dean had been doing, then peeled his jeans down his legs, while Dean just lay there with his limbs leaden and his cock half-erect and let it happen. A spanking or a dick in any of his orifices would bring him fully around, he figured, but right now he was in his bed with a full stomach and Castiel making strangely soothing grumpy noises over him, and none of it was conducive to Dean getting his eyes open and becoming a full participant in the proceedings.

"Turn over," Castiel said, but he must have caught on: he didn't wait for Dean to move before flipping him over bodily, and wow, he was stronger than he looked. He hooked his fingers in the collar of Dean's overshirt and shucked it off him, leaving him in T-shirt, boxers and socks. Dean stretched his arms out in front of himself, under the pillow, and felt Castiel sink onto the edge of the bed beside him; a hand slipped through his hair, against the grain, and Dean let his breath out, long and slow.

Castiel's hand traced the full length of Dean's spine. When he reached Dean's ass, Dean bit his lip and arched his back, spread his knees a little. Castiel smoothed his palm over one buttock, then slid his fingers under the hem of Dean's boxers to press and squeeze it skin-to-skin, with his thumb flirting again at the cleft he had run it along on the way there. Dean was fully hard now, breath and heart quickening, and he began to get his knees under himself, only to be stopped by a hard, sudden slap to his ass.

"Lie still," Castiel said, sounding exasperated, like Dean had been pissing him off all evening. Dean went slack against the bed, gasping, and Castiel rubbed the stinging skin where the blow had fallen.

"Sorry," Dean said, eyes prickling. "I'm sorry." He gripped handfuls of the bedsheets and tried to pull himself together. It was way too early in this process for the goddamn waterworks. He was just so tired and so undone by Castiel, that was the problem, and he'd just nearly ruined the evening he'd been looking forward to for days by falling asleep in the middle of it--

"Shh," Castiel said, running his hand across Dean's clenched shoulders. "Everything is fine, Dean. Just be still." He kneaded the back of Dean's neck until the tension began to leave it, then took his hand away in favor of slipping it up Dean's T-shirt, where he rubbed slow circles on Dean's back. Dean groaned into the pillow, aware again of his dully throbbing erection trapped between his stomach and the mattress, and wondered what the hell kink of Castiel's this was satisfying for the entire thirty seconds it took him to fall asleep.

-

He came around with his face still mashed into the pillow and the covers pulled up to his shoulders, and drifted in that warm cocoon for he wasn't sure how long, until the events of the previous night resolved out of his memory with a cold shock. Dean bolted out of bed and into the living room: empty. He did a full circuit of the apartment, but it was just him and last night's dishes. So Castiel had undressed him, tucked him in, completely failed to take advantage of Dean sexually even though that would have been awesome, and then shown himself out, locking the door as he went. The only thing he hadn't done was put the dishes in the sink to soak, which Dean did now, dawdlingly, while he tried to decide whether he was pissed at Castiel or at himself, or just mortified, or all three.

The clock on his cell phone showed, when he made his way back to the bedroom and fished it out of his discarded jeans, that he'd slept for at least twelve hours. That might've been his personal best since leaving the service. Dean scrolled through the notifications from a text conversation about horrible music in which Sam, Jo and Ash had for some reason chosen to include him, then opened his contacts and stared at Castiel's name for a long time before hitting the call button.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel said after the second ring. So he was still taking Dean's calls, at least.

"Hi," Dean said. "Uh, good morning." Jesus Christ, he should've had coffee before he called. "I, uh, about last night."

"Yes. How do you feel?"

Dean faltered. "Pretty good, actually," he said. "I just woke up. I--" He sucked in a deep breath. "Listen, I'm really sorry about last night, and I just, I hope you'll--"

"What are you sorry for?" asked Castiel, and Dean paused. Okay, he knew this exercise, and if they were doing this, maybe he still had a foot in the door.

"I'm sorry for wasting your time," he said.

Castiel was quiet for a moment. "Uh," he said finally. It was the first time Dean had heard him sound like he didn't already know what the next word to come out of his mouth would be. "What?"

Dean blinked. "I'm sorry for -- not -- for not satisfying you last night?"

Another silence uncoiled along the phone connection. Dean restrained the urge to slide off the edge of the bed and onto the floor. This conversation would have been so much easier in person, where he could have pled with his eyes and his body, where he could have kissed Castiel's hands and, ideally, given him an apology blowjob.

"I thought 'what are you sorry for' was a colloquialism expressing that you have nothing to be sorry for," said Castiel at last, rapidly. "Is that wrong?"

Dean huffed disbelievingly. "No, but I thought -- I thought you meant you wanted me to show I knew how I'd fucked up."

"No, Dean," Castiel said, with a sigh in his voice like he thought Dean was being supremely ridiculous. "You didn't. You made me dinner and did what I told you in bed. I enjoy your company."

"Dude, I  _ fell asleep _ ."

"You were tired."

Dean pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Neither it nor Castiel offered him any further explanation. "And if I hadn't zonked out?"

"I had planned to pin you down on your bed and spank you severely, at the least."

Dean let out a shaky laugh and pressed a palm against his suddenly interested cock through his boxers. "Uh, do you want to swing by for lunch, you think?"

"I ... have a meeting at the office," Castiel said reluctantly. "It'll take most of my day." Oh. Dean let his hand fall away, and had one moment to brace himself for the final brushoff before Castiel continued, "My weekend is free. Does another time suit you?"

Dean rubbed his eyes and bit back another chuckle. Maybe it was just time to stop freaking out about last night. "Tomorrow, noon?"

"Yes," Castiel said. "I'll come to your apartment. Answer the door in your underwear and T-shirt. Don't prepare lunch ahead of time; I want to watch you make it."

"Yes, sir," Dean said automatically, shivering down to his toes. "Uh -- if I jerk off after this conversation--"

"You may," Castiel said, and the rest of the question flew out of Dean's head. Not being allowed to touch himself while alone in his own home had never been a prospect with anyone before; he couldn't have explained why having Castiel's permission to do what he'd been about to do anyway felt like an enormous, blessed reprieve.

"Thanks," he said, palming himself again. He was so hard, damp against his thigh already.

"Be ready for me tomorrow," Castiel said, with a warning in his voice that might have meant  _ your ass will never recover _ or just  _ try to stay awake for the whole thing this time _ , and hung up.

And that was how Dean got a boyfriend.

-

It wasn't obvious immediately. First he got his spanking, draped over Castiel's thighs on the couch with his hands tied behind his back with a length of hemp rope Castiel had produced from his pocket as he crossed the threshold of Dean's apartment. He shoved Dean off his lap while he was still limp and reeling from his orgasm, and held him pinned over the arm of the sofa while he gasped and growled and finally came on Dean's ass and the backs of his thighs. He rubbed the head of his cock through the mess with a choked noise as he squeezed out the last of it, and Dean was, on the one hand, definitely developing a fetish for this, and, on the other hand, just about ready to scream with how desperate he was for Castiel to actually fuck him. At least he'd managed direct skin contact with Castiel's dick this time.

Castiel retreated to the other end of the couch for that period of stunned postcoital withdrawal that Dean remembered from the first time, then pulled Dean to him by his bound wrists and held him for a while, stroking his chest and throat and breathing gently on his hair until Dean's shaking subsided and the wild sine curve of his emotions post-spanking leveled out into drowsiness. Eventually they bestirred themselves. Dean put Castiel's jeans through the wash for him, then knelt on the kitchen floor and ate torn-off bites of a ham sandwich from the hands of a serenely pantsless Castiel.

He figured Castiel would leave once the dryer cycle was done, but he showed no particular urgency about getting out of Dean's apartment; at last Dean rested his cheek nervously against Castiel's knuckles and said, "I just got  _ Looper _ on DVD if you're interested," and just like that they were making a day of it. It came to light that Castiel had only the vaguest idea who Bruce Willis even  _ was _ , so they started with  _ Die Hard _ instead. Dean watched it from between Castiel's feet, with his ass aching against the carpet and Castiel's hands in his hair.

For  _ Looper _ Castiel invited Dean up onto the couch -- invited him onto his  _ own _ couch, Dean realized halfway into crawling gratefully up next to Castiel and laying his head in his lap. He had access to much more of Dean's body like this, and Dean had already been practically quaking with arousal through most of  _ Die Hard _ , just from Castiel's chastely stroking hands and the heartbeat throb of pain through his body; they only made it another half hour before Castiel ordered a halt on the movie and dragged Dean bodily back into his lap. He hooked a hand behind Dean's knee and pulled Dean astride him, with a growl about Dean keeping his hands behind his back, then ran his hands up the backs of Dean's thighs and under the hems of his boxers to scrape his fingernails across the welts on Dean's ass.

Dean almost jackknifed himself right back off the couch. Castiel yanked him back into place, slotted their hips together firmly and ground up against Dean as he worked worked Dean's ass over for the second time today, with his fingers and his merciless nails. Dean wobbled in Castiel's lap from the helpless reactive jerking of his own hips, flexed his hands uselessly at his back, and finally just slumped into Castiel and pressed his face into Castiel's shoulder. He could feel Castiel's fast breath against his neck; the ridge of Castiel's pants fly chafed Dean's erection through his underwear. This had been his first fantasy, practically his first thought about Castiel: Castiel's fingernails, Dean's recently beaten ass. But that had been about a sensation he wouldn't get with Charlie, about a stranger with a hot voice, not about someone he knew coming back to territory marked a few hours previous to stake his claim on it again. Dean was very surprised when it was Castiel who came first.

Castiel was rigid beneath him for a moment, then slack for a moment. Dean fought the desire to work himself down against the bulge in Castiel's jeans he could still feel pressing up under his balls and waited, hands clenched behind himself. He was breathing fast, making little sounds at the end of each exhalation that would have turned into pleading in a moment if Castiel hadn't reached up and put his hand on Dean's throat; Dean gasped instead, half panicky and half eager, but all Castiel used this grip for was to steady him, with Dean's pulse racing under his fingers and Dean's throat working against his palm. With his other hand he reached between their bodies to push the waistband of Dean's boxers down below his balls. Dean's cock sprang up against his stomach and he whimpered through his bared teeth at the released pressure, then cried out when Castiel's hand closed on him. He came after too few strokes, and it was a fight to keep his hands where he'd been told to when his body wanted to abandon discipline and writhe.

He was still coming when Castiel pushed him, not ungently, off his lap. Dean pressed his face against the inside of Castiel's knee and rode out the last twitches and pulses of his orgasm on the floor, at once happy to let the pleasure forcibly curl him up in this space Castiel had made for him between his feet, and confused to have been put back there so abruptly. Castiel had thrown his head back against the couch cushions and offered no insight for a couple of minutes, but finally raised his head, sat forward, and gave Dean a long, encouragingly dazed look while he wiped his hand methodically on his jeans.

"Did you uncross your wrists at any point?" he asked, and Dean shook his head. Castiel rested his other hand on Dean's hair. "That can't have been easy. I'm impressed you could do that for me."

The tears came from nowhere and were rolling down Dean's cheeks before he could blink them under control. He turned his head to blot them on Castiel's knee, but Castiel caught his face in both hands and stroked them away with his thumbs instead. Dean shut his eyes tight and breathed in long shaking gasps until it passed.

"Is something wrong?" asked Castiel, very softly, when Dean reopened his eyes. Dean shook his head again, between the brackets of Castiel's hands.

"I get like this. I'm okay. I'm--" Dean took stock of his aches, of the mess they'd jointly made of their clothes and probably also Dean's couch, of the soaring feeling of being spoken to by Castiel like this. "I'm awesome, actually."

"That's good," Castiel said, running his thumbs along Dean's wet eyelashes. "You can use your hands again." He pulled Dean in a little closer and pressed his face into Dean's hair; Dean rolled his stiff shoulders and reached up tentatively to touch the back of Castiel's hand, then curl his fingers around Castiel's forearm. They were silent together for a while, breathing, while everything slowed and settled. Dean was just beginning to feel sleepy when Castiel stirred and said, "Where's the remote?"

Dean laughed a little, startled. "Are you even into this movie, dude? It's been like statuary and mannequins movie night in here." At some point Castiel had put a hand on own knee; Dean rested his head on it.

"The causality in it is a mess," Castiel said after a pause. "I don't know where to begin demonstrating that time travel would never work this way."

"It's not like I'm gonna cry if you don't like my movie, Cas," he said. Castiel just looked at him levelly until Dean cracked a grin. "I mean we can skip the rest."

"I want to see how it ends," Castiel said, and sounded so completely aggravated about it that Dean laughed again and kissed his wrist.

Dean started another washload, sheepishly, before they got back to the film: almost everything the two of them had been wearing, this time. They had dinner while it was in the dryer, and Castiel finally left after dark, with one final long stroke down Dean's back from his neck to his ass. Dean did the dishes and floated off to bed, back on cloud nine. Jo stabbed him with her spoon practically the moment she laid eyes on him at work the next morning.

After that there seemed to be an unspoken agreement, or possibly a unilateral decision on Castiel's part that Dean happened to agree with, that sometimes they were just going to hang out without anyone's clothes coming off. That was new, for Dean. Alastair hadn't been hanging-out material by any stretch; Victor had been all business; and Tessa, when Dean had eventually crept back to Stripes after the disaster with Victor and met her, had wanted to hang out, but not as a dom and her sub. That had seemed like a fine idea to Dean, but he'd never figured out how to shut it off with her, the reverence, the urge to subordinate himself. He could see it getting on her nerves sometimes, in restaurants or when she wanted to have vanilla sex.

Castiel showed no interest in finding Dean's off switch. Sometimes if Dean swung by Castiel's place after work with a six-pack and a pizza, or Castiel called him to grumble "I know this proposal is inviable, but I can't prove it. What was that movie you wanted me to watch?" the evening would end with Castiel jerking off onto the raw skin of Dean's ass while Dean whimpered into his fists, and sometimes they wouldn't do much more than watch the movie, but if Dean was with Castiel he knew Castiel would be calling the shots until they parted. It largely confined their goings-on to their homes and, on one memorable occasion, Dean's car, and Dean didn't think to put a name to any of it until Charlie called him.

"I might need your penis," she said after the salutations.

Dean paused. "Well, I. Huh. If someone had made a bet with me about why you were calling, I would've lost a lot of money just now."

"I get about four thousand comment cards asking me how to tie up a penis every time I do a demo, and they're starting to wear me down. It can't be that bad, right?"

"For me or for you?" asked Dean. Charlie snorted.

"Please, like you don't fantasize about having your junk tied up by a huge dyke all the time."

"Well, I  _ hadn't _ ," Dean said, and smirked at Charlie's groan of disgust. The microwave beeped; he stirred his instant pasta and carried it into the living room with the phone wedged between his cheek and shoulder.

"All kidding aside, can we get together at my place to rehearse or whatever sometime this week, with an eye to doing a demo Thursday after next? Usual terms. If you come on Tuesday you can make a character for Gilda's new Changeling campaign while you're here and she'll finally stop nagging me about getting you to play."

Dean opened his mouth to assent without thinking, but stopped himself, and hesitated for so long that Charlie said, "Dean?"

"I don't think I can do it," Dean said instead.

"Is this a 'don't tie me up like that' issue or does it have something to do with you not showing your face around Stripes for like two months now? ... or do you hate Changeling? I told her AD&D was the way to your heart."

"I've ... been hooking up with this guy," Dean said, like the words had been dragged from him. So far his things with Castiel had been conducted in a bubble of privacy, free of examination by anyone but the two of them, and when he thought about it like this it seemed contextless and surreal. It was a warm thing in his chest that helped sustain him through the rough patches of every other part of his life, but for all the direct interaction it had had with those other parts, he might as well have dreamed it.

"Wow, when you put it that way, it sounds amazing."

"Shut up. I just don't think--"

"You  _ think _ you shouldn't be getting tied up and spanked by someone else?"

"We haven't really talked about anything," Dean muttered.

"Oh my god. Dean, you have to get that ironed out like  _ yesterday _ . If you're having exclusive feelings about this guy and he doesn't know, you're going to get hurt and you won't even have a right to be angry about it."

"Okay, dude, I can do without BDSM 101."

"This isn't BDSM 101, this is Dating 101," Charlie said. Neither of them said anything for a moment. "Aaand you hadn't realized you were dating," she added heavily.

"It's not like we can exactly go out for dinner and a ..." Dean began, then heard what he was saying and trailed off.

"I'm happy for you, but also totally embarrassed that we're friends. I hope your boyfriend -- it's a real word, google it -- is awesome and super tolerant."

"Oh, ha ha ha," Dean grumbled into his pasta. And then, abashedly, "He's pretty awesome."

"Good. Now can we talk about how I need to find a new guy to tie up and the many ways in which that's tragic?" said Charlie.

Dean's breath left him in a relieved laugh. "Don't you just walk into a club, close your eyes and point?"

"It's not that easy. Most dudes, I get really skeeved out if I know they're going to be jerking off later thinking about me."

"That's ... flattering. I think. At least you don't have to worry about that with me for the foreseeable future?"

"Well,  _ there's _ a lie," she said with a snort.

Dean laughed again. "Busted."

Castiel answered the door in jeans and bare feet, with blue and green smudges of dry-erase marker on his hands. "Dean," he said. "I thought--"

"Wrapped things up at work earlier than we were expecting," Dean said, and held up the six-pack in his hand. "Beer. You hungry?" He blew past Castiel into the kitchen, put the beer in the fridge and investigated the meat and vegetable drawers just in case some mysterious process had caused food to appear in them in the last three days. When he straightened, Castiel was standing on the other side of the refrigerator door, and Dean flinched away with such violence he almost dropped the quart of out-of-date milk in his hand. " _ Fuck _ , Cas."

Castiel gave Dean the same quizzical frown he always got when Dean objected to being ninja'd up on like that, and took a step back, as silently as he'd approached.

"Jesus," Dean said, trying to will his heart back to a normal pace. He sniffed the milk, recoiled, and pitched it. "You still have the least raidable fridge I've ever seen, man," he said, on his way back out into the living room.

"What's the matter, Dean?" asked Castiel from the doorway of the kitchen, and Dean froze halfway to the coffee table and the stack of takeout menus thereon. He shook his head, fast and jerky, and didn't look at Castiel.

"Nothing's the matter," Dean said. "It's just been a rough case, thought I'd celebrate it with you."

"That's not true," Castiel said, and his voice was even nearer. Dean whirled to find Castiel now halfway between himself and the kitchen door. Watching him take another step closer like a normal person did a little to dispel his momentary air of menacing unreality, but it also made Dean feel trapped, standing there with Castiel in front of him and the couch behind, like he was already pinned.

Dean clenched his fists. His heart was still pounding; nervous sweat prickled along his neck. "I can't just want to hang out with you?" he said, almost through his teeth. This time, when Castiel stepped toward him, Dean took a step back.

"Of course I'm pleased to see you," Castiel said. He advanced another step, and a third, until the arm of the couch touched the backs of Dean's thighs. Dean bit his tongue but a sound still escaped, and Castiel was still closing on him, moving in with his head cocked and a frown between his eyebrows until he was so near there was nowhere for Dean's skittering gaze to fall except his face. "I also know something is very wrong." Dean dug his fingernails hard into his palms and quivered with Castiel's proximity, with the urge to let his legs buckle and deposit him on the floor. He could just capitulate to Castiel's steely presence and curl against his legs, be small and safe once again at his feet. Except Dean was neither of those things, and his mouth twisted with sudden horror at the thought of Castiel offering him tenderness, of Castiel's hands on him while he was so jagged and unclean--

"Do I have to beat it out of you?" asked Castiel, lowering his chin.

Dean tried to break and run at the same moment his arm swung around of its own accord in a wild haymaker. Neither worked. Castiel eased his head back just out of Dean's reach, then grabbed him by the elbow and turned all of Dean's momentum around on him. He slammed Dean down on the couch facefirst, bent over the armrest, with Dean's right arm twisted up behind his back; Dean pawed at the cushions with the left, trying to get leverage, but Castiel just caught it by the wrist and pinned it at the back of his neck. Dean bucked under Castiel's weight, terrified and irrationally, inarticulably relieved. Something clawed its way up his throat; he expected a scream or maybe hysterical laughter, and was instead surprised to find that some part of him that had actually learned from Victor had mustered the word, "Yellow."

Castiel took his hands off Dean instantly and stepped back from the couch. Dean breathed into the cushions, shaking with adrenaline and trying to keep an ear out for Castiel. The hand that touched his hair was still a surprise; Dean flinched away from Castiel's gentleness.

"Or you could just tell me what's wrong," Castiel said. He must have crouched down to speak to Dean.

"Dude." Dean turned his head so he could see Castiel, who looked back at him with the same expression he'd had before Dean's outburst: canted head, thoughtful frown, not at all like Dean had just tried to deck him and he had slipped it like it was nothing. "Who the fuck  _ are _ you?"

"That's a conversation for later."

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, clenched and unclenched his lips over his teeth, considered vomiting. Castiel stroked his thumb along the short hair above Dean's ear, and Dean shrank from it as best he could without testing his ability to actually stand up and move away.

"Did something happen with your brother?" asked Castiel. Dean shook his head convulsively. Castiel grated out a low thoughtful sound and was silent for an interminable, agonizing stretch of seconds before saying, at last, "Something went wrong at work." Dean said nothing, just listened to his blood pound in his ears. "Dean," Castiel began, then stopped, perhaps warily, when Dean stirred, though all Dean was doing was crossing his wrists at the base of his spine. His arms shook with the effort of moving them; his whole body had been at red alert for too long. "Are you sure about this?"

Dean waited, concentrating on pressing his fists against the top of his ass to keep his arms from going slack, and at last Castiel stood up, barely audibly, and moved around behind him. He reached under Dean to unbuckle his belt and unzip his jeans. Dean could've helped with this, pushed off the floor with his feet to create a space for Castiel's hands between his hips and the arm of the couch, but he just lay there, too tense to cooperate, and Castiel managed well enough on his own. He slipped Dean's belt off and looped it around his wrists, tucked it back on itself to secure it, then dragged Dean's pants and underwear down below his ass. Dean could have relaxed his shoulders now that he was bound, but he didn't know how, and the hand Castiel rested against the bare skin just above his ass only wound him tighter with revulsion.

"I won't proceed until you say you're ready," Castiel said. Fucker. Dean flexed his arms, making his belt creak around his wrists, and waited for Castiel to get that Dean had already said as much. All Castiel did was yank the belt tighter, though at least he did it in a slightly punitive way that made Dean gasp. "Verbally, Dean," he said.

Dean pressed his face angrily into the cushions and made Castiel wait for a while. He could take only so much of that himself, though, and eventually ground out, "Green."

Castiel struck him as soon as the word was out of his mouth, a full-force blow from the shoulder that made Dean jerk against the sofa, feet leaving the floor. "What happened at work, Dean?" he asked, levelly as ever, and hit Dean again without waiting for the answer Dean couldn't give him yet. "Why did you leave early -- did Turner send you home?" Dean curled his legs up to protect his ass, but Castiel shoved his feet back down and went right on spanking Dean, one cheek and then the other, in a fast rhythm that gave Dean no time to think between bursts of pain. "What happened with your case? What did you do?"

The cry that had been building in Dean's chest escaped him in a burst of denial: "I didn't do anything!" Castiel was on him instantly, yanking Dean's head back by the hair so that his face came up off the seat cushion.

"What did you do, Dean?" From this angle, Castiel might have been a less able to strike Dean with his full strength, but now that Dean was warmed up he couldn't tell; any touch on his ass would have hurt, let alone these hard open-handed slaps.

"I swear, I swear, I didn't do it I swear to God Cas--"

"You wanted to," Castiel growled.

There it was. After hours of tension, Dean went suddenly and finally limp. He flinched once more in rhythm with the swing of Castiel's arm, but no blow fell; he thought he could feel the heat of Castiel's hand hovering above his ass like a threat, but maybe that was just the welts rising on his skin.

"Say it," Castiel said. Dean whimpered something that must have been close enough to a  _ yes _ for Castiel; he rested his hand on the curve of Dean's ass and Dean writhed under the burning weight of it, scrabbling uselessly at the carpet with the toes of his boots. "Tell me what happened," he said.

"Can't," Dean said, then convulsed against Castiel's grip when the answer was two fast swats of Castiel's free hand.

"Yes you can." Castiel twisted Dean's head back farther and ran his hand across Dean's buttocks, dipping his fingers into the cleft between them. "Tell me, Dean," he said, and his hand rose; Dean clenched in anticipation.

"Jo left me alone with the suspect," he blurted, and Castiel's hand came back soft, rubbing in slow circles that kept the pain a living, grounding thing, not bodily background noise that Dean could forget.

"You've been alone with suspects before," Castiel said.

Dean panted for breath. "Not one with a time limit on him," he said. "We reopen an old investigation on this guy and suddenly his stepkid's missing too. We're sweating him and Jo leaves to get coffee, leave him alone with the bad cop for a minute, we always do this. But they -- they teach you to see  _ people _ again before they let you loose on American soil, and not just -- just -- where to hit and what to twist to get the information you need as fast as you can, but there's a kid probably still out there somewhere and I -- f-forgot--" Dean's cheek was against the couch cushion again; at some point Castiel had relaxed his grip on Dean's hair, and was now just resting his hand on it lightly. Dean realized he had unconsciously begun to flex with the movement of Castiel's other hand, half shying from the pain, half pressing up into it.

"What did you do?" asked Castiel.

"Told Turner I couldn't be on the case anymore and left. Just drove around for a while. I wasn't going to come here but then I -- did." Dean sucked air through his teeth. "You don't just fucking walk out on an investigation like that but I didn't -- I didn't know what I'd do, if Jo was gonna be the next person I looked at that way or--"

Castiel spanked him hard, three times, four, and Dean was grateful just to spasm against the couch and be unable to think for a moment. "You did the best thing you could have done in the situation, Dean."

Dean shook his head against the cushion, lying strengthless under Castiel's hands. "I wanted to cut him so bad, Cas," he said just above a whisper, then closed his eyes and groaned, unresisting now, when Castiel scraped his nails gently over Dean's scalp, against the grain of his hair.

"I forgive you," Castiel said.

The first sob felt like it was shredding his throat. He'd thought he had nothing left, no energy with which to move and barely enough to speak, but now that the tears were here they wracked him, and he howled. Dimly he was aware of Castiel hiking his pants back up and releasing his wrists from the belt, but these were the last things on Dean's mind until Castiel hauled him fully onto the couch and guided Dean's aching arms around his shoulders. Dean jammed as much of his body as he could against Castiel's and wept into his shoulder, clutching at the back of his neck and a fistful of his shirt.

"Shh," Castiel said to him again and again, and, "You did nothing wrong," and, "My Dean," and, "My good man," and ran his hands along Dean's back and arms, until Dean was quiet and exhaustion pressed him down into sleep.

Castiel was snoring directly into Dean's ear when he woke, and Dean jerked away, fuzzily aware that he had slept through this chainsawing for a while. When Dean moved Castiel stirred as well, and the two of them spent a moment just squinting at each other through the last veils of sleep.

"How do you feel?" asked Castiel at last, reaching up to rub a patch of salt crust from below Dean's eye with his thumb. Dean relaxed and let his head droop back toward Castiel's shoulder. There was a stain on Castiel's shirt there that Dean hoped was more tears than snot.

"Like I--" He stopped to cough. "Like I went two rounds with a physicist and lost." His voice sounded ravaged.

Castiel opened his mouth to reply, but was ambushed by a yawn and wound up stretching instead, arms above his head, hips rising off the couch. Dean was abruptly and intensely aware of Castiel's body; he'd felt it like this only a few times, the angles and planes of it flexing full-length alongside his own. He was so inaccessible physically and seemed so uninterested in his own sex appeal that Dean forgot sometimes that in addition to hitting like a Mack truck and reading Dean like a book, he was also just a hot guy Dean wanted to bang.

With him still stretching it was hard for Dean to keep his head on Castiel's shoulder, and therefore perfectly reasonable for him to stretch out along the couch with his body turned to face the backrest and his head in Castiel's lap. Moving in earnest woke Dean's many hurts, not just the raw immediate pain of his ass, but the bruise above his hips where Castiel had forced him down on the couch and the stiffness in his shoulders from fighting the belt around his wrists. There had been nothing sexy or fun about the spanking while Castiel was administering it, just the struggle against it and then the giving in, but after the fact, one recently-tanned ass felt much like another, and the reminder left Dean short of breath.

There was one thing different: the whole event was glittery and unreal in Dean's memory, but he was fairly sure Castiel hadn't gotten off. Dean hadn't provided whatever the thing was, obedience or subservience or just a pretty ass, that at least merited jerking off onto him. Castiel relaxed and rested his hand on Dean's neck, and Dean shivered under the warm proprietary weight of it and thought about that, about what Castiel had done for him and to him earlier, about the closeness of Castiel's body. Heart thudding, nose and cheek pressed against Castiel's thigh, Dean inched his head up toward Castiel's hip.

He'd put it out there a few times, made it clear he was at Castiel's disposal, but aside from a little frottage now and again, Castiel had yet to avail himself of any of the numerous awesome ways his dick and Dean's body could go together. Which was -- fine. Dean wasn't a take-it-slow kind of guy himself, but taking Castiel's lead on this was frustrating in a sort of good way, and the drawn-out anticipation had left him shiveringly attuned to even Castiel's smallest touches. But they'd crossed some kind of line tonight, and Dean was grateful and unsatisfied and just had to get Castiel's cock in his mouth  _ right away _ .

He was almost at the hip and ready to progress to phase two of Operation Sneak Up on Castiel's Dick when Castiel shifted his weight and a long, wet snarl issued from his stomach. Dean froze, then began to laugh incredulously when the sound just went on and on. "We never did have dinner," Castiel grumbled, and that was it for Dean's composure; he put his face against Castiel's leg and laughed until his eyes watered.

"You want to order something?" he managed eventually. Castiel caught up Dean's wrist and turned it so he could see his watch. "Oh," Dean said. "Wow. The Roadhouse'll still be open if you want to go out."

"Will you be all right leaving the house?" asked Castiel. He was still holding Dean's wrist, and it made Dean feel liquefied and reluctant to move.

"I'm fine, dude," Dean said, making a face, then gasped and arched himself across Castiel's lap when Castiel twisted his arm up behind his back. "I--" He looked up into Castiel's grim face, hesitated, made himself actually think about the question through the strain on his arm and the early throbbings of an erection. "I'm better, Cas, I'm way better. I just -- n-need-- Maybe you could -- keep an eye on me." He closed his eyes, panting.

"Of course," Castiel said, and let his hold on Dean ease. Dean curled against him, feeling relieved and brittle, resentful of Castiel's insight and his own inability to just be fine. Castiel ran his hand up Dean's arm and along his shoulder and finally curled it around the back of his neck for a moment, then seemed to remember they were supposed to be doing something and said, "On your feet." He gave Dean a push to get things started; Dean hauled himself upright and stretched, aware of Castiel's eyes on him, then had to grab his still-undone pants before they slid down.

"Wait," he said as he zipped up. "God, I'm sorry, you're working tomorrow. Maybe cereal's a better-- No milk. I could  _ get _ milk--"

"I'm not going to work tomorrow," Castiel said. Dean blinked.

"It's Monday, dude. Tuesday now, I guess."

"I'm calling out."

"Oh." Dean stood awkwardly, flummoxed, while Castiel got to his feet. The space between them was too small for polite company, and Dean closed his eyes and let himself sway a little closer, toward Castiel's warmth and scent and breath; Castiel was also not a kisser, and that was more difficult sometimes than the lack of conventional sex. "Thanks."

Castiel's stomach replied for him with a squelching growl that made Dean's mouth twitch. "Get cleaned up," Castiel said, very nearly rolling his eyes. He pushed Dean toward the downstairs bathroom, then padded up the stairs, already undoing the buttons of his shirt.

Once he'd taken a look in the mirror, Dean was almost glad Castiel's stomach had scuttled his blowjob plan; he wouldn't have fucked himself right now either. He washed his face, tried to do something about his hair, stuck his nose under his T-shirt to make sure the smell situation was acceptable, and ignored a tremor of worry about being out of Castiel's sight. Castiel couldn't be more than thirty feet away in this little house of his, and Dean was fine. Nothing was going to happen. He wasn't going to  _ do _ anything, except try to make himself look less like hammered shit.

Dean came out of the bathroom to find Castiel nowhere in evidence and did not freak out. "You alive up there?" he yelled up the stairs, and received, after a moment, an unintelligible reply. A faucet came on. Dean shrugged, parked himself gingerly on the couch and, after fidgeting for a while, fished the silent black brick of his phone out of his pocket.

He turned it on delicately, like the keys might burn him. Earlier he'd nearly thrown it out of the car window, and he half regretted that moment of restraint now, as a flurry of voicemail and text notifications penetrated the bubble of safe unreality Castiel had built around them. Jo would have called Sam, and one or the other of them must have been asking around to see if Dean was at anyone's place. He fired off a stand-down in Jo's direction and was trying to figure out how to say  _ I just need more time with my dom and will call you in the morning _ to his brother when Castiel came back downstairs in a fresh shirt and stocking feet. He began a circuit of the room, looking in corners and under furniture with an implacable, hawkish expression that would have been impressive if he'd been directing it at something other than the search for a pair of shoes.

_ big crazy vet freakout @ work _ , he tapped out, finally.  _ im ok just getting my head straightned out _

The reply was almost immediate, which at this hour of the night told Dean as much about how worried Sam had been as the text itself did.  _ Damn it Dean I broke into your apartment _

_ did u fuck up the door choirboy? _

_ Picked it. You weren't in there dead, which I took for a good sign. _

_ turned off phone during freakout. sorry sammy _

The pause was longer this time.  _ Need a lift? _

If Sam was awake anyway, he could meet them at the Roadhouse. Dean entertained this thought for a few pleasant seconds, then pictured Sam asking Castiel "So, how do you guys know each other?" and immediately texted him,  _ crashing @ friends place. call in the a.m? _ In the entryway, Dean's "friend" had located some sneakers in the coat closet and was toeing them on. Dean felt weird about eyeing Castiel's ass in this situation.

_ Will do. I can yell at you for scaring me then. _

_ yay. _

_ Glad you're alive. _

_ get some sleep sam _

Castiel strolled back over to the couch, and Dean scooted forward in his seat, wincing as he rediscovered the condition of his ass. He rested his head against Castiel's hip while he wrapped up his conversation; Castiel moved closer, until he was standing between Dean's knees and Dean didn't have to lean so far.

"They found the kid," Dean said once he'd put his phone away. "Last time Jo texted me the stepfather was saying he wanted to confess." And Turner had been saying Dean wasn't welcome at the station until he'd been cleared by his psychiatrist  _ and _ the department psychiatrist, but Dean didn't feel the need to talk about that. It was better than he would have hoped for.

"Congratulations," Castiel said gravely. Dean snorted into Castiel's thigh.

"Thanks, I'll pass that along to the people who did the work."

Castiel tilted Dean's chin up with his fingers and gave him a long look. "You were with the investigation from its beginning until its last hours, Dean," he said.

Dean closed his eyes against the sight of Castiel's cocked head and furrowed brow. "Couldn't stick it out, though, huh?" he said, and waited with his jaw twitching and retorts already lining up at the back of his tongue for whatever Castiel would say next.

He was still disarmed for a moment when Castiel replied, "I'm glad you came to me tonight," with a reflective note in his voice that made Dean want to shiver. But the bile rose up again fast, just as bitter as before with his failures -- at work, and then here, in one of the small number of places where he felt safest and liked himself most. Maybe he had been failing Castiel all along, unawares, and Castiel's strange, brutal kindness had stopped him from saying anything about it.

"I don't know why, it's not like I did any more good here than I did at work," Dean said, and wrenched his chin out of Castiel's hand. Castiel just switched his hold to Dean's shirt like he thought Dean would ever try to get away from him, and Dean caught his breath, ready for Castiel to hit him for breaking his grip, ready for Castiel to just fuck him finally, ready for a display of passion or violence that wasn't some favor Castiel had to do him because Dean had had a shitty day and led a shitty life.

Castiel said, "You threw away my out-of-date milk."

A laugh leapt out of Dean before he could restrain it, and their tension broke. Castiel's hand relaxed around its fistful of Dean's shirt, and his face softened with that puzzled satisfaction that came over it every time he made Dean laugh without understanding how.

"Sorry," Dean said, covering his eyes. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing, man. I'm a mess."

"I know, Dean," Castiel said, but there was no sting in it, just a hushed understanding that made Dean blink hard and bite the inside of his mouth.

Fuck it. "There's, you know--" He slid off the couch, onto his knees. Castiel was standing so close that it was an easy thing for Dean to nuzzle along his thigh until his nose touched Castiel's groin. "I can do a little more for you than save you from your own housekeeping."

"Dean?" Castiel was very still.

"I'd do all kinds of things for you," Dean breathed, and was mouthing his way up Castiel's fly when Castiel took hold of Dean's hair and tipped his head back sharply. Dean wet his lips and was surprised to find that his heart was pounding; they'd only been seeing each other for a couple of months, but it felt like he had been waiting for this for years, and he'd never gotten so close before. "Please," he said, and was a little impressed by how steady his voice was.

"Dean," Castiel said again, with such regret that Dean steeled himself automatically for the letdown.  _ I'm not into you, it's just the spanking _ maybe, or  _ Some weird Catholic thing forbids me from getting head _ , or-- "I masturbated while I was upstairs."

Dean jerked his head out of Castiel's grasp and threw himself back against the seat of the couch. " _ What _ ?"

"I mastur--"

"Yeah, I got that part.  _ Why _ ? I was right down here, dude!"

Castiel was rigid, arms at his sides, not making eye contact. "I don't want to impose on you sexually after what you've been through today."

Dean gaped up at him. "Cas," he said, "sex would be  _ awesome _ right now. Or  _ any time when I'm not working _ . I was ready to rip your pants open with my teeth before we started talking about dinner."

"With your teeth." Castiel sounded dubious, but the uncomfortable lines of his body were starting to ease.

"That's not the really the detail you were supposed to--"

"You beg beautifully," Castiel said, and Dean cut off with a sound like Castiel had socked him rather than just placing his hand lightly on the side of Dean's head.

"Please," Dean said, forgetting their quibbling; here was what mattered, here was what he needed. "Please, Cas, I can get you up again, just let me suck you off." He leant into Castiel, pressed his face against Castiel's stomach, groaned when Castiel's fingers slipped down the back of his neck and under the collar of his shirt. After earlier, after fighting Castiel so hard and practically choking on his own wrongness, it felt good just to be back here again, and Dean reveled in that feeling of being towered over and cared for.

"This is something you think about," Castiel said, with no note of discovery, no upward tilt in his voice to make it a question: he knew. He knew and he hadn't done anything with the knowledge.

"Yeah." Dean made himself raise his head and look Castiel in the eye. "All the damn time, Cas, why don't you ever--"

He stopped. Castiel was stroking his other hand down Dean's face, trailing his thumb along the center of his forehead and the bridge of his nose. When it passed over his mouth Dean opened his lips against it, let his tongue flirt along it. Usually anyone who was looking at and thinking about Dean's mouth so obviously was a sure thing, but this was Castiel, and Dean still couldn't predict which way he was going to go more than half the time. He watched Castiel's face from under his eyelids while Castiel ran the pad of his thumb along Dean's bottom lip, and still wasn't certain this was going to happen until Castiel spoke.

"Do you need me to be gentle with you, tonight?"

Dean drew a breath so shaky it was almost a laugh. "Hell no, are you kidding? You can--"

Castiel took him by the front of the shirt and hauled him upright so fast that Dean never got a chance to find his footing before Castiel shoved him down again, onto the couch. It drove the air out of Dean and reminded him anew of the state of his ass; he clutched at Castiel's forearms, gasping, while Castiel climbed on top of him and planted a knee on either side of Dean. His crotch was right there, not a foot from Dean's face, and he tried to sit up fully so he could nuzzle at it, but Castiel just straight-armed Dean against the back of the couch and made him watch as he undid his belt and fly with his free hand and drew his cock out of his pants.

He wasn't hard at all yet, and Dean worried for one moment that he was going to spend the next few minutes chafing uselessly at Castiel's soft dick with his mouth and frustrating them both, until he glanced up again and saw the sheer ferocious  _ I'm going to fuck that _ in Castiel's expression. Dean had experienced this himself, the brief sexual renaissance of seeing someone new and exciting who, even here on the far side of thirty, could get him hard again less than half an hour after his last orgasm with the right touch or suggestion, but until just now he wouldn't have bet it was reciprocal this time. Castiel stroked himself in long slow pulls and twists of his hand, and Dean could see, in the movement of his body more than the state of his cock, the instant it started to really work.

Dean squirmed between Castiel's knees, but Castiel still wasn't letting him up enough to help. Not with his mouth, anyway. He hadn't given Dean any instructions about what he was supposed to be doing with his hands, which meant Dean was free to drag the waistbands of Castiel's jeans and boxers down -- just a couple of inches at first, then all the way past the swell of Castiel's ass when he made no move to stop Dean. Dean had laid his head in Castiel's lap probably dozens of times by now, even once or twice woken in bed to find his head pillowed on Castiel's hip, but he'd never touched this skin before. He cupped Castiel's ass, squeezed it, then ran his hands up the small of Castiel's back, under the tail of his shirt; feeling him flex, hearing the low guttural sound that came from him, made Dean regret the lost time even more than he already had.

Also new was seeing Castiel in a state somewhere between perfectly composed and immediately pre-orgasmic. Up to now, even when he'd gotten to watch Castiel jerk off and not just heard or felt the results, it had only been Castiel finishing himself off; he'd entirely missed out on this buildup, on the soft shapes of pleasure Castiel made with his mouth and the tightening of Castiel's foreskin around the head of his cock as it grew to full size.

"Cas," Dean panted, desperate and ready and feverishly hot under his too many clothes. "Cas, I'm right here, c'mon just let me--" He strained upward against Castiel's hand and was able, just barely, to brush his lips against the backs of Castiel's fingers as they curled around the head of his cock. Castiel twitched and went still, and the arm he was holding Dean down with relaxed a little. As much as Dean wanted to nuzzle his way under Castiel's fingers immediately and at least get a taste of him, he made himself kiss Castiel's knuckles instead, the back of his hand, his wrist. "Cas, please," he breathed against the skin there.

He was prepared to be teased some more, or maybe for a reprimand, but not to simply get what he was asking for. Dean opened his mouth in surprise as much as invitation when Castiel bumped his glans against Dean's lips, and in a moment the cock he had been longing after unrequitedly for weeks was nudging its way past the back of his tongue. Castiel fucked Dean's throat without further preamble, while Dean fought his gag reflex and tried as best he could to take it. This wasn't his ideal angle, and Castiel picked a pace and a depth that had Dean squirming between him and the couch every time he drove himself home in Dean's mouth. Maybe he liked that, that this was difficult, that Dean had to fight not to choke; the thought sent a shudder through Dean and made him rut his hips up against thin air, scraping his aching erection unhelpfully against the inside of his jeans.

"My good man," Castiel said in a shaking voice. Dean would have moaned if he had been able to breathe. Prior to tonight he had never been  _ my _ anything with Castiel -- except that he had been, in the confines of his head, in that place he went to in himself where his will was subsumed to Castiel's and he would do or be anything, anything Castiel wanted of him. He was going there now, descending, and the words bore him as he went, like Castiel's hand cupping the back of his head. "Even after what you've been through today, you still want to serve me."

Castiel's thrusts were slower now, longer, enough for Dean to actually tongue at and suck him as he withdrew, and then longer still, until Dean tried to chase the retreating head of Castiel's cock for fear of losing it entirely. All that got him was Castiel taking him by the hair and holding his head firm against the couch's back so that there was nothing he could do when Castiel did finally slip out of his mouth altogether. For one thrilling instant Dean thought Castiel was about to come in his face, but when no such thing seemed to be happening and Dean opened an eye he found Castiel with his head thrown back and his fist tight around his cock. Dean writhed under him, gripping handfuls of the back of Castiel's shirt, and just begged: no structure or finesse, just that he was all Castiel's, that he would do better, anything Castiel wanted; just need.

"Shh." Castiel's hand went gentle in Dean's hair for a moment, then curled tight again. "Yes, I do," he said hoarsely. Dean had no idea what Castiel was replying to exactly, had no idea what he had been saying, but whatever it had been, it worked: Castiel's cock slid past his lips again, still slick with Dean's saliva. There was no discomfort now when it invaded his throat, just the soaring satisfaction of Castiel finally taking what Dean had been offering him and the hot tug of arousal in Dean's spine and groin every time Castiel signified his pleasure with a moan or a break in his rhythm. He fucked Dean's mouth fast, and then faster, and finally buried himself in it and stayed that way, trapping Dean between his hips and the backrest. Dean had never seen him come as hard as he did now; it wracked him, doubled him over, and there was a shocked note in the sounds he made.

Dean stroked Castiel's ass and hips and waited to be permitted air again. The mounting protestations of his lungs joined his old and new aches and the throb of his cock in the joyous anticipatory drumbeat of his body, the pulse that tallied the things Castiel had done to him and left him craving more. Things had started to get a little hazy by the time Castiel pulled out; Dean failed to override his body's demand that he put all of his energy into catching his breath, and by the time he could sit up and try again to pursue Castiel's cock with his mouth, Castiel was on his feet, hiking his jeans up. He hadn't put himself away yet, and he didn't stop Dean from leaning in to lick away the chlorine-and-pennies taste of his come, nor from just mouthing reverently along the softening length of him once he was clean. Castiel exhaled slowly and ran his fingers through Dean's hair.

Eventually he did push Dean away, gently, so as to tuck his cock back into his pants and fasten his fly. When Dean looked up at him, Castiel's cheeks were flushed and his lips were red like he'd been biting them, and it would have been so terribly easy just to stand up and kiss him, finally, to give him this use of Dean's mouth as well. Except his eyes were closed, and when he finished doing up his belt he just stood with his hands on the buckle and a furrow between his brows, like he'd wandered off into his head and left Dean behind. He hadn't done this in a while, but he'd also never face-fucked Dean on his living room couch before; maybe -- maybe that hadn't been as good a blowjob as Dean had thought it was, or maybe this was just Castiel's endgame, maybe that was all he had ever wanted and Dean shouldn't have pushed for it, because now--

"Cas, can I," Dean said at random, anything that might quiet his own thoughts and bring Castiel back from wherever he was going, "can I jerk off?"

Castiel opened his eyes and hooked Dean instantly with his gaze, and they were off again, like Castiel had never hesitated. "No," he said, and Dean found himself bent double in his seat, panting, his relief forgotten in an incandescent flare of arousal. He'd asked this question a few times, out of some combination of whim and deference, but the answer had always been yes:  _ yes, you can jerk off when we get off the phone; yes, sorry I had to cancel, fix yourself dinner and jerk off; yes, you can jerk off in the shower while I brush my teeth and watch _ . Having Castiel's seal of approval had led to a few of Dean's favorite solo sessions, but he hadn't imagined that finally getting a  _ no _ would nearly obviate the question. "No," Castiel said again, slowly now, head cocked, and tipped Dean's face up toward him like he had earlier. If his hand had landed anywhere south of Dean's nipples Dean might have come on the spot; even so he teetered near the edge, trembling, pulsing in his jeans. "You may not. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," Dean said. God, he'd thought his voice was a wreck before. He couldn't keep his hips still, and even a small gyration of them ground his ass against the seat cushion. "Sorry, I--"

"Quiet," Castiel said, not unkindly, and Dean shut his mouth. "You're very aroused."

Just hearing Castiel wrap his mouth around those words curled Dean's toes in his boots. "Yes, sir."

"You enjoyed that more than I expected."

"God, yeah," Dean rasped, then got shakily to his feet, drawn up by Castiel's fingers under his chin. Castiel ran his hand down Dean's neck, his chest, his belly, and finally brushed his knuckles against the bulge of Dean's painfully constrained erection; the contact made Dean buckle against him, and Castiel caught him by the biceps with both hands.

"Turn around," Castiel said, and then just turned Dean bodily without waiting for him to comply. As soon as Dean was facing the couch, Castiel shoved him down on it, then followed, kneeling on the seat just behind him and a little to the left. His hand slipped under the tail of Dean's shirt and up along his spine, pressed him against the back of the couch. "Open your pants."

"Oh, fuck." Dean fumbled at his belt and button and zipper with shaking hands. Castiel had his thumb in the back of Dean's waistband, and yanked his jeans and underwear halfway down to his knees as soon as his fly was open. The release of pressure on his cock made Dean yelp into the backrest, and he couldn't shut up, suddenly; he moaned and whimpered into the upholstery while Castiel stroked the memory of the earlier spanking where it lived in and under the sore skin of Dean's ass, and the sounds crescendoed into more words when Castiel's fingers slipped between his buttocks and teased at his asshole: "Oh fuck oh fuck Cas  _ please _ \--"

"Shh," Castiel said, back to just stroking with his open hand now. "I'm so pleased with you, Dean. I'm--" He pressed his forehead against Dean's shoulder for a moment, exhaled hard through his nose. Dean waited transfixed, obediently silent except for a little noise of bereftitude when Castiel's hand lifted away. "You are magnificent," Castiel said finally, raising his head, "and you make me very happy."

His hand came down again on Dean's ass, hard, with a crack of flesh meeting flesh. Dean spasmed, openmouthed but voiceless with shock until the next blow landed and tore a hoarse wail out of him. Castiel pushed his other hand farther up Dean's shirt, making it bunch and ride up along his stomach, until he could close his fingers on the back of Dean's neck; he pressed Dean firmly into the back of the couch and worked him over methodically, rousing every bruise and ache. This time there was no element of reprimand or terror or self-loathing, no agenda but the spanking itself, and no shred of resistance in Dean. He gave into it utterly, whimpered and howled and rocked with the cadence Castiel set, while what Castiel had said to him played and replayed itself in his head. Every slap drove him higher up a spiral of pleasure and satisfaction, drew his balls up tighter against his body, broke him open a little more.

"Dean," Castiel said, and Dean tried to convey that he was listening, that he would always listen, but he had neither the coordination nor the words for it. "You may touch yourself now, if you want."

Dean's orgasm hit him before he could get much farther than thinking about reaching for his cock. His hand might not have been useful for getting him there, but he was grateful to be able to thrust into it as he came, to finally experience friction from something other than his precome-damp boxers. Castiel never let up on him, except that at some point the slaps turned to caresses, Dean wasn't sure when; on the hot, abused skin of Dean's ass they felt much alike, and Dean reacted to them the same way, pressing his ass back against Castiel's hand for him to do with as he pleased. As Dean wound down, the range of Castiel's stroking grew to encompass Dean's back and thighs, sides and stomach, and with no rhythm to follow anymore Dean went slowly still, slumped against the couch back.

He expected to be alone for a while, for Castiel to withdraw from him again, but when Castiel pulled away and reclined at the end of the couch with his back against the armrest, he tugged Dean along with him immediately. Dean followed him clumsily, yanking his pants up and getting come from his wet hand all over them in the process; Castiel wound up hauling him into position like a sack of potatoes, but once they were settled his arms were around Dean's shoulders and his neck was right there for Dean to bury his face in, and Dean didn't give a shit about anything else. He held onto Castiel's shirt front with his clean hand and let the aftermath shake him. Maybe he'd run out of moods to swing through, because there were no tears this time and no laughter, just a long period of trembling that lapsed slowly into sated exhaustion.

If he stayed where he was and kept doing what he was doing he was going to pass out, which sounded like a fine idea, but he remembered now that this had all started with Castiel wanting food, and he'd be damned if Castiel was going to wind up eating dry cereal at four in the morning because of him. "Where do you go, man?" asked Dean blearily, just to get his brain working again.

"Hmm?" Castiel didn't seem to be his most wakeful either.

"Sometimes after you get off you, I don't know, need some me time? I mean -- I guess that's pretty personal, maybe this isn't the time to--"

"It's fine, Dean," Castiel said. Whether it was a good thing or a bad one that he sounded more alert now, Dean didn't know. He traced absent patterns on Dean's shoulder with the fingertips of one hand, and said finally, "The past."

For a moment Dean thought disorientedly of the way Castiel was always at once frustrated by time travel movies and unable to tear himself away from them. "Yeah?"

"Many things about our relationship would be unacceptable to me if I were -- still as I was raised to be." Castiel's hand traveled up over Dean's shoulder and past his collar to brush the nape of his neck; it sent a tremor all the way down to Dean's toes. "We're both men. You're an atheist. Most importantly, I chose you for myself."

Dean waited for him to mention all the violence and power stuff, but apparently that went without saying. "That's, uh, intense."

"It can be challenging to reconcile. Why, does it bother you?"

Maybe it was that he had not quite left the fringes of subspace; maybe it was how tired he was, or the shiversome contact of Castiel's fingers with his neck. One way or another, Dean said, "Scares me," and wished instantly that he hadn't. "Oh god, Cas, I didn't--"

"Dean." For a man who barely emoted, Castiel made it damn clear when his heart was breaking. Dean hadn't even known he could do that to Castiel, and oh shit, here were the tears after all. "It won't happen again," Castiel said, tucking Dean in tighter against his body. Dean babbled something, trying to demur, anything to take that look off of Castiel's face, but Castiel cut him off again, with a steel in his voice that would have been intimidating in some other context: "Dean, no. It won't happen again."

Dean gave up, curled his arm around Castiel's neck, and just hid his face until his eyes were dry again and he felt reasonably confident that he wasn't going to start actually sobbing. At some point Castiel began to stroke his hair, in a lulling rhythm that was going to send Dean right to sleep if something didn't give. He raised his head, scrubbed at his face with his sleeve. "So, uh." It didn't seem right not to address what had just gone down, but there wasn't a single thing Dean knew how to say that would have been adequate. "You still hungry?" he hazarded instead. "'cause I am fucking starving, but I think I need to borrow some clothes if we're going anywhere other than a drive-through."

Castiel stared for a moment, still cradling Dean, like he was having trouble catching up to this turn of the conversation. "Yes, if you feel up to it."

"I think I'm good." Dean was about to stand when an impulse made him lean in instead, to place a tentative kiss at the base of Castiel's neck. Castiel's throat worked, and his hand came up toward Dean's face, so Dean kissed that too: the backs of the fingers, and then the palm when they flexed open for him. He looked up again to find Castiel watching him, smiling as much as he ever did and looking, at the same time, fascinated; some circuit had closed, and they were on the same page again.

"I need to clean up too," Castiel said, touching Dean's cheek. They got to their feet together, and Castiel led him upstairs.

  
  
  



End file.
